Lessons of history raised after pre-election flagging of subsidised international container shipping calls at port
Certain Transport and logistics players involved in Tasmanian trade have voiced concern at the new Liberal Government’s promise to subsidise international containership calls and make Bell Bay the state’s export gateway.
Most spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid putting political noses out of joint, especially just after the election and before the policy is confirmed.
Some point to the failure of Bell Bay to hold a regular call since 2011, pointing to the loss of Agility Shipping’s attempt after the AAA shipping consortium withdrew, along with ANL’s inability to make a Bell Bay-Melbourne service pay.
“They’ve been effing told often enough … Bell Bay doesn’t work for shipping,” one transport executive says.
Instead the multimodal corridor between Hobart in the south and Devonport and Burnie in the north has been the focus of industry activity aimed at the port of Melbourne.
“Ultimately trucking companies will go where the business is. But you can see where current alignments lie and it will take wholesale change to shift those,” another executive adds.
One shipping firm happy to go on record was ANL, whose Managing Director, John Lines, unleashed a broadside against subsidies, describing the idea as “a very short-sighted and ill-conceived strategy to meet the needs of Tasmanian exporters” and pointing to an extension of the Tasmanian Freight Equalisation Scheme to export cargo as a better option.
Read the full examination of the issues in the May issue of ATN.